Two days later:
Lucien pushed himself onward into the small training courtyard of thr fifth command post, where Rylen was waiting for him and wove chrono-fields around weighted dummies, and Jason tested his new made kinetic gauntlets against reinforced targets that were as durable as a skyscraper. Emiluna hovered by the med-station just next to the courtyard, arranging her healing crystals in crystalline patterns on a steel cart and perfecting her Chronomend to their full potential.
Without looking up to see Lucien eye to eye, Rylen said, "You ghostin' us again today Lucien? Nearly spilled plasma gel all over my chrono-matrix."
Lucien offered a small but genuine grin. "Sorry guys. Heard something weird i think… voices again." He flexed his fingers. "They call my name over and over again, like they're bored and poking me through a screen for their own fun."
Jason paused mid-punch. "So your talking about that council business?"
"I think so, I don ´ t know for sure. Faint echoes throughout the whole day—reminders of promises, warnings and decisions. I can't tell what they want exactly from me and why they even want somehting from me." Lucien rubbed the back of his neck. "Feels like they're—scrutinizing me."
Emiluna closed her eyes for a brief momentt. A soft halo of pale light flickered around her. "I think i can sense it too Lucien. A low frequency hum behind reality's heartbeat. Not my domain to mend—more like… distant thunder."
Rylen adjusted his blades. "Council beyond space and time. Countless of realms away. Constellations of power weaving destinies. You sure you don't want to give a call too Karu and put in a sick-day to clear your head?"
Lucien shook his head, resolve stiffening in every muscle in his body. "I'll endure everything that comes my way, you guys know that. We all signed up to protect all the people on planet earth, not second-guess cosmic overlords." He nodded to Emiluna. "Let's run gear checks again. Tromsø's is waiting for our arrival."
At 11:00 A.M., the main briefing meeting pulsed with low conversation. They were contacted by the Norwegian Nighguard Corps. They showed holographic displays projected Northern Norway in icy blues, dotted by pulsing red beacons marking energy anomalies. Commander Karu's three-dimensional avatar hovered over the map, visor reflecting the swirling data.
"City grid had been offline since 03:22 in the morning," Karu announced to the corps, voice steady. "No monster signatures detected again. Civilians remain unaccounted for. We suspect temporal stasis fields—pockets of frozen time.The Norwegian government specifically requested the Fifth Division to carry out this mission. So Rylen, lead the mission. Jason, control perimeter. Lucien, find something. Emiluna, healing support. Departure T-19."
Lucien studied every inch of the hologram that was shown. Desperate to find something. Beneath Tromsø's streets, energy spikes pulsed like never seen lightning trapped under the ice. He frowned. "Again its similar to Asagiri—village went dark, then reappeared empty. But this is a city, thousands of lives are missing because of the actions of the King of Hell."
Emiluna tapped her comm crystal. "I'll stage remote healing so we can patch through any chrono-rift injuries immediately."
Jason slung his kinetic gloves and gauntlets over his shoulders. "And I'll prep crowd-control nets—though I doubt we get crowds tonight in this empty city."
Rylen clipped on both of his blades to his sides. "Here's hoping we find survivors this time and not… permanent exhibits."
Karu inclined his holographic head. "Stay sharp, Division 5. If needed. Civilian rescue first, intel second. We will move in an hour."
As the briefing ended, Lucien's palms tingled with the ghosts of those Council whispers by his side watching every step Lucien takes. I think they saidthey'll test me again, he thought. Push me toward that fateful edge.
He drew in a lungful of forced calm and exhaled. Not yet. First, Tromsø.
The armory's vault doors slid open with an echoing sound. Rows of new exo-suits for Divison 5 gleamed on racks—customized frames bearing battle scars and painted insignias of the Nighguard Corps.
They all stepped in. Mechanical servos hummed as Rylen sealed his breastplate, articulated cables snapping into channels. Inside the helmet, the HUD lit up: system check 9%..... 36% .....48%….76%..... 100%. Defence system activated, filtering stray psychic input.
Jason entered to room behind him, securing his new gloves that made the punches feel 5 times harder. "You ready?"
Rylen nodded. "Of course i am." He slid on his reinforced boots. "Are you."
Jason, now flexing his knuckles into his new kinetic gloves. "Storms I can see—monster storms—I'll handle. Ghost storms I'll just ignore." He grinned.
Emiluna draped several healing weaves across both of her arms. "We all have our roles in this mission," she said, tone gentle but firm. "We save people from dying, not chase whispers."
Lucien entered the room and met their gaze in each polished visor. In that moment he was not a vessel of divine judgment or a King—but just the same old Lucien, the teammate, the friend, the protector. Their solidarity severed another thread of the Council's pull.
"I ´ m ready."
Strapped into the reinforced seats, Lucien stared through the bullet proof glass as Tokyo's skyline slowly shrank behind them. Neon signatures of the city faded into the suburbs of Tokyo. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the engine's roar lull him for a heartbeat.
Sitting beside him, Rylen opened his holo-pad. Jason was toying with the gauntlet calibration. Emiluna checked her med-drone's battery cycles. He could tell she was nervous because she kept checking it over and over again. The only clear thought in Lucien's mind: Soon I must choose for a throne. But not tonight.
Rylen reached to the comm-console. "Div 5, prepare for the low-orbit drop in two." His voice was al always calm.
On the outside, the rotor tilted, engines howling over the now dark horizon. Weightless for a breath, they hovered, then banked north. Tie-rod struts groaned as the craft dove into dark clouds—an Arctic sky awaiting them.
A shiver ran through Lucien his whole body as he remembered childhood nights under his family's porch al alone, staring at stars, dreaming of justice. You're still the same kid as those years.
Lucien bit his lip as hard as he could. Only this time, the stakes are even higher.
They landed with a muted thud onto the frozen tundra just outside the city Tromsø. The air smelled of ozone and snow. Temperature on the weather app gave: -25°C. Lucien put on his suit that kept him warm, heating coils flicked on to the highest mode. Outside, swirling flurries blurred distant buildings.
Rylen scanned the entire area with a thermal drifter. "No life-signs as of now. Crystal readings stable—structure intact. Yet total blackout."
Jason hefted his kinetic net launcher. "All right folks. Let's find out why this time." He cracked his neck. "I´ m starting to hate these abandoned cities."
Emiluna's med-drone hovered near. "Keep channels crystal clear. I'll be on stand by for chrono-rift injuries."
The four of Division 5 advanced across the snow. Lucien started with activating the suit's infrared overlay. Nothing but frozen tableaux—darkened windows, silent streets. No life in sight. Beneath the city's frozen crust, his HUD tracked energy veins like glowing arteries.
Lucien spoke into the comm. "Div 5, move in the standard formation. Watch for chrono-pockets—don't step into the frozen time zones."
Rylen took left and Jason took right, both scanning with prismatic blades and recoil-gauss rifle. Emiluna set up an emergency healing anchor in the middel of the town, its soft and sweet aura bathing the steel in a purple glow.
Lucien breathed into frost-coated air. Then the first time he heard the Council's distant whisper clearly and it broke through to him: "Choice… destiny…"
He clenched his jaw. Not now. He tapped his comm. "Its clear here" he reported. "Let's keep pressing till we find something."
As they advanced further into the town, Rylen whistled softly, "You remember that time we got stuck in that metro station in Sawara? That family of level 3 swamp beasts—"
Jason interrupted Rylen his sentence with a loud laugh. "You mean when our precious Lucien punched one of them its stomach so hard it squealed like a pig in high C?"
Lucien rolled his shoulders. "Come on now Jason, if you're going to attack a beast that looks like a dirty hog-elephant hybrid, you have to aim for the guts."
Emiluna shook her head in the distance, smiling in spite of herself. "Rylen if i remember correctly. Did that beast also started speaking Japanese?"
Rylen chuckled. "At least temporarily. I thought I heard temple bells for a second."
Jason elbowed Lucien in his side. "At least one of us has a sense of humor about these kills."
Lucien sighed, scanning the next block up ahead. "I'd rather lighten the mood. Keeps the Council's doom-sayings at bay."
Emiluna tapped her comm. "If they get any louder the next time, I'll need to sedate you."
Jason grinned. "No sedatives allowed in our Division Emiluna—only coffee. .37 seconds until espresso runs out at base."
Rylen turned playful scowl. "I will switching Divisions if he forces me to drink that filthy espresso again."
They all laughed and Rylen Jason and Lucien rounded a corner to find a single streetlamp flickering on. Beneath it lay a row of footprints that ended in mid-step. Lucien knelt to check, brushing frost from a shoelace. "Looks like they walked out of our world."
Emiluna also came along and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. "We'll bring them back Lucien, don ´ t worry."
He gave a genuine smile, truly for the first time since dawn. "Together."
Lucien pressed on. He had no time to wase, the Council's whispers were gathering more and more strength: "Vengeance… King… Thrown....destiny… choose…" Each syllable scraped against his thoughts. He clenched his teeth, fighting the tide of invisible voices.
I will not be puppeteered, he vowed inwardly. First, rescue. Then answers.
Yet as they all moved deeper into Tromsø's silent grid, Lucien started to wonder if every rescue mission that they went on was another step closer towards their endgame—another turning of the screw. The Council's puppet? The King's successor? Or something he could not yet name.
His heart pounded faster and harder then ever. Lucien had the weight of that unmade choice on his shoulders. And above it all, the ghostly memory of Lucien's last vision—the three-panel tapestry he was given by the Creator of Gods in the cosmic starlight: Crown of Hell, Vengeance Reclaimed, A Mother's Pride—flashed through his mind like a warning beacon.
Not yet, he told himself. First, save the lives of the innocent. Then I decide my own fate.
They reached the central square again, half-sunken by drifting snow. In the center stood a lone fountain, its water was frozen mid-flow.
Jason tapped his on his visor. "Energy signature: chronal flux locked in sub-zero stasis."
Rylen read his gauntlet display. "Temporal gradient unstable. Could snap like glass."
Emiluna went forward towards to fountain. "Let me try my Chronomend anchor again." Her crystals flared, weaving circular runes in the air. The frozen water rippled—but the glow intensifed, then shattered outward in a pulse that sent them all skidding back.
Lucien braced himself against the blast, suit plating groaning. When the light finally faded after 30 seconds, the fountain's ice had been cracked—revealing a minimum of three-thousand ghostly figures trapped like insects in amber. Men, women, children, eyes wide in terror. Their mouths were wide open in silent screams.
Rylen drew one of his blades. "Okay, this is really and i mean really bad."
Jason's gauss barrel glowed. "Looks like time-poisoned victims. We need to extract them as fast as we can."
Lucien knelt down by the cracked basin. He placed a steel-gloved palm on the ice. "Hold on for just a second. We're getting you out now." He toggled his emitter to Purge-Pulse—an electromagnetic surge made by the one and only Karu Arakizawa designed to fracture temporal shells.
The frozen figures began to flickered between life and death as arcs of light splintered the ice. But after a couple of minutes they fell one by one on the ground. The people collapseda as soon as they hit the ground but they were alive, breathing—but at the edge of a void. Emiluna knelt down, laying hands on each, weaving rapid restorations. She healed the three thousand people in less than a minute through her upgraded powers of chronomend.
"Got them all," she murmured, voice tense but still soft. "But more pockets ahead—this is widespread."
Lucien nodded, brushing the snow and ice from his sleeve. His heart thudded with urgency—and most of all fear. Each rescue edged him closer to exhaustion. Each pulse of those Council whispers pressed in, urging him toward an uncertain throne.
Rylen rose, voice firm and steady. "Move out. Follow my lead."
As they pressed on into Tromsø's frozen heart, Lucien fought the Council's echoing claims on his soul: "Vessel… Vengeance… Ascend…Now"
He would come face to face with them soon enough—face the Previous God of Vengeance, face the King of Hell, face choices older than the universes themselves. But for now, in this moment his mission was as simple as it can get: protect the innocent, defy the cold and evil, and prove that even a mortal man could shape his own destiny.